FOX college football analyst Joel Klatt has talked about Oklahoma football several times this spring on his weekly podcast and that he believes the Sooners will be much-improved offensively in the 2025 season.
In his ranking this week of the top-10 quarterbacks for the 2025 college season, Klatt may have turned quite a few heads among the college football cognoscenti when he placed OU's John Mateer No. 3 on that list behind only Cade Klubnik, the returning starter at Clemson, and much-heralded Arch Manning, the new starting quarterback at Texas.
FOX college football analyst ranks OU QB in top 5
This week on "The Joel Klatt Show," the former Colorado Buffalo quarterback underscored the major reason why he has such strong feelings that head coach Brent Venables and the Sooners will get the wheels of the program headed back in the right direction in the coming season
That reason is the addition of Washington State transfer Mateer at quarterback. The lever that largely enabled the Sooners to lure Mateer to Norman was bringing in new offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle, who was in the same position at Washington State last season where Mateer turned in one of the best quarterback performances in the country.
Earlier this month, Klatt issued his post-spring, still-too-early college football top 25 for the 2025 season. Oklahoma was one of 10 teams included in Klatt's preseason projection. He had the Sooners in the No. 25 spot.
Mateer is clearly the lesser known of Klatt's top-3 signal callers, but the Washington State transfer's numbers last season and what Klatt was able to observe of Mateer on film was enough to convince the FOX CFB analyst that the new OU quarterback should have another breakout season leading the Oklahoma offense.
Last season at Washington State, Mateer threw for 3,139 yards and ran with the ball for another 826 using his legs. His 3,965 total offensive yards ranked fourth among FBS teams. Mateer led the FBS with 44 total TDs.
"He's got a big arm," Klatt said about Mateer. "He can run it. He's a dual-threat guy. He was the only quarterback last year to average over 250 yards through the air throwing the football and 50 yards on the ground in every game."
All the mounting expectations that are being thrust on Mateer and his arrival at Oklahoma by those in the media who closely follow college football have to be weighing heavily on the shoulders of the new Sooner quarterback.
Venables said Mateer is built to handle the pressure and spotlight that is on him as the starting quarterback at Oklahoma, though.
"I think he's got great competitive maturity to him and competitive toughness," Venables said about his new transfer quarterback at a press conference in March.
"He's blended in and transitioned incredibly well," Venables added. "He's about that work. Players recognize his talent immediately, but he's incredibly competitive. He's got a great maturity about him, and he's a process-driven young guy."
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